“Lie town, lie town, my poy. If you ket up, tat will pe you are a Cawmill. No, no, my son! You are ferry cruel to your own old daddy. She would pe too much sorry for her poy to hate him. It will pe so treadful to pe a Cawmill! No, no, my poy! She would take you to her poosom, and tat would trive ta Cawmill out of you. Put ton’t speak of it any more, my son, for it cannot pe.—She must co now, for her pipes will pe waiting for her.”
Malcolm feared he had ventured too far, for never before had his grandfather left him except for work. But the possibility he had started might do something to soften the dire endurance of his hatred.
His thoughts turned to the new darkness let in upon his history and prospects. All at once the cry of the mad laird rang in his mind’s ear: “I dinna ken whaur I cam frae!”
Duncan’s revelation brought with it nothing to be done—hardly anything to be thought—merely room for most shadowy, most unfounded conjecture—nay, not conjecture—nothing but the vaguest of castle-building! In merry mood, he would henceforth be the son of some mighty man, with a boundless future of sunshine opening before him; in sad mood, the son of some strolling gipsy or worse—his very origin better forgotten—a disgrace to the existence for his share in which he had hitherto been peacefully thankful.
Like a lurking phantom-shroud, the sad mood leaped from the field of his speculation, and wrapped him in its folds: sure enough he was but a beggar’s brat—How henceforth was he to look Lady Florimel in the face? Humble as he had believed his origin, he had hitherto been proud of it: with such a high-minded sire as he deemed his own, how could he be other? But now! Nevermore could he look one of his old companions in the face! They were all honourable men; he a base-born foundling!
He would tell Mr Graham of course; but what could Mr Graham say to it? The fact remained. He must leave Portlossie.
His mind went on brooding, speculating, devising. The evening sunk into the night, but he never knew he was in the dark until the housekeeper brought him a light. After a cup of tea, his thoughts found pleasanter paths. One thing was certain:—he must lay himself out, as he had never done before, to make Duncan MacPhail happy. With this one thing clear to both heart and mind, he fell fast asleep.
CHAPTER XLIII.
THE WIZARD’S CHAMBER.
He woke in the dark, with that strange feeling of bewilderment which accompanies the consciousness of having been waked: is it that the brain wakes before the mind, and like a servant unexpectedly summoned, does not know what to do with its master from home? or is it that the master wakes first, and the servant is too sleepy to answer his call? Quickly coming to himself, however, he sought the cause of the perturbation now slowly ebbing. But the dark into which he stared could tell nothing; therefore he abandoned his eyes, took his station in his ears, and thence sent out his messengers. But neither, for some moments, could the scouts of hearing come upon any sign.
At length, something seemed doubtfully to touch the sense—the faintest suspicion of a noise in the next room—the wizard’s chamber: it was enough to set Malcolm on the floor.